Cucumbers Healthy Food Guide

Peak season: May through August

Recipe shown above: Tropical Cucumber Salad

To see cucumbers in a dream denotes that you will speedily fall in love. Or, if you are in love, then you will marry the object of your affection

—Richard Folkard in Plant Lore (1884)

Food historian Waverley Root once wrote that a cucumber is “about as close to neutrality as a vegetable can get without ceasing to exist.” He must not have tried the right ones. From crisp kirbys to nearly seedless greenhouse cukes, there are plenty of alternatives to the thick-skinned types that typically dominate supermarket bins.

Perhaps its most important nutritional contribution is refreshment: at 95 percent water content, a cup of cucumber slices is nearly as thirst-quenching as a glass of water. Just thinking about cukes makes us feel cooler. If your cucumber repertoire is limited to tossing slices into green salads, try some of these simple inspirations that reach beyond.